Butcher Paper as a Wrap

I have never wrapped pork butts in butcher paper. I either pan them with foil or just cook them through without wrapping. It all depends on your smoker and how much bark you want.
If you try butcher paper post your results.

Seen an episode of Barbecue with Franklin the other night. He tried 3 methods on his show. One with no wrap, One with Aluminum Foil, and the other with Butcher paper. Final results basically, no wrap deeper smoke flavor, Butcher paper, little less smoke flavor, and finally Aluminum the least amount of smoke. He used a basic rub, salt, pepper, garlic on all three. Hope this helps. 

SmokinAl said:

 
I don't wrap my butts anymore, unless I am short on time & need to speed up the cook.

I don't think I would use butcher paper on a butt, just because of the amount of juice that will come out of the butt during the cook.

I always used an aluminum pan & used the juice in the pan to mix in with the PP after pulling it.

Al 

Click to expand...

X2 on what Al said.

Only time I wrap butts is if I'm hitting a time crunch and need to crank up the heat to get them done faster.  Then it's to retain moisture and keep the outer crust from becoming too dry or overcooked.   Foil or paper wrapping will decrease the bark formation, but that also depends on when you wrap. Now at the end of a butt smoke, I do wrap with foil and place in a cooler for them to rest for at least 30 minutes before pulling.  This gives the juices time to redistribute evenly and the temp to equalize throughout the butt.  For that, foil would be just easier to deal with as compared to butcher paper IMO.  Also I can hold foiled butts like that in a cooler for hours. This is the preferred method when cooking for a group gathering, be it a family dinner or a large holiday gathering of relatives.  It gives a time buffer as no two butts seem to cook in exactly the same number of minutes, stalls, etc... are less of an issue.

There are those who say food does not really take on any more smoke flavor after about 160-170 degrees, but I disagree with that logic (as the BBQ with Franklin episode showed by comparison of foiled, wrapped, and naked). 

Oh, and I don't care how carefully you foil, there will be some juice leakage into the cooler. No big deal, it cleans up with Dawn just fine.  I usually double wrap in perpendicular directions, but no wrap is 100% perfect in my experience.  But if you are using something other than a hard/smooth plastic lined cooler this might be an issue.

Adding on.... the rest time is important for the final breakdown of collagens along with juice redistribution. Personally I always do a rest minimum of two hours.  Wonderful things happen during this period.

Many folks use butcher paper for a final wrap...   It "breathes" somewhat while keeping moisture in the meat and reduces the stall...   Wrapping should be done somewhere around IT of 155-160 to breeze through the stall...   I understand the bark is not affected too much...  Just from what I have read...  

There are many butcher papers on the market..  the Chinese make a bunch...  they also buy millions of tons of recycled paper from us and other countries...  I would choose American Made butcher paper with the FDA food safe stamp over the others....